Unexpected behavior when serializing nested JSON objects in Ruby on Rails with ActiveModel Serializers
After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm having a hard time understanding I tried several approaches but none seem to work... I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. I'm facing an issue with serializing nested JSON objects using ActiveModel Serializers in my Ruby on Rails application (version 6.1). I have a `User` model that has many `Posts`, and I'm trying to serialize both the user and their associated posts into JSON format. However, when I attempt to render the user with their posts, I end up with some unexpected keys in the output, and the nested posts don't serialize as expected. Here’s a simplified version of my models: ```ruby class User < ApplicationRecord has_many :posts end class Post < ApplicationRecord belongs_to :user end ``` I've set up the serializer like this: ```ruby class UserSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer attributes :id, :name has_many :posts end class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer attributes :id, :title end ``` When I call `render json: @user`, I expect to see a JSON object that includes the user’s `id`, `name`, and an array of their posts containing just the `id` and `title`. Here’s what I actually receive: ```json { "id": 1, "name": "John Doe", "posts": [ { "id": 1, "title": "Post Title 1", "user_id": 1, "created_at": "2023-10-01T12:00:00.000Z", "updated_at": "2023-10-01T12:00:00.000Z" }, { "id": 2, "title": "Post Title 2", "user_id": 1, "created_at": "2023-10-02T12:00:00.000Z", "updated_at": "2023-10-02T12:00:00.000Z" } ] } ``` I'm seeing the `user_id`, `created_at`, and `updated_at` fields in the posts array, which I don't want. I've tried overriding the `attributes` method in the `PostSerializer`, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Here’s what I attempted: ```ruby class PostSerializer < ActiveModel::Serializer attributes :id, :title def attributes(*args) data = super(*args) data.except!(:user_id, :created_at, :updated_at) end end ``` However, this doesn’t seem to affect the serialized output. Can anyone help me understand why these extra fields are appearing and how to prevent them? Is there a better way to handle this situation? Thanks in advance! Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm working on a API that needs to handle this. What am I doing wrong? I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Ruby. Any suggestions would be helpful.